Rotman Portfolio Management Competition (RPMC) 2019

Introduction

The BMO Financial Group Finance Research and Trading Lab is pleased to present Rotman Portfolio Management Competition (RPMC) 2019. This competition is open to all undergraduate and graduate students registered in Canadian universities. RPMC aims to promote a hands-on learning experience for students by managing an investment portfolio with the securities listed and traded in actual markets using the Rotman Portfolio Manager (RPM) platform developed by the Rotman Finance Lab.

Students will participate in teams of up to three students and each team will start with an initial cash allocation of CAD $1 million at Day 1. Each team's objective is to generate the highest risk-adjusted returns by the end of the competition period measured by the Sharpe Ratio. Participants will only be allowed to trade restricted securities listed on the U.S. and the Canadian exchanges. Participants may also short-sell any securities and also trade on margin (e.g. leverage allowed).

The competition will take place online on October 22nd, 2018 and run until March 8th, 2019. Selected top performing teams will be invited to present their strategies at the closing day on March 15th, 2019 in front of the judges to determine the overall winner.

All the registered participants will be invited to attend the Opening Ceremony on Thursday, October 11th, 2018 at the Rotman School of Management. There will be a presentation about the competition which also includes tutorials on investment strategy suggestions for your portfolio.

Registration

Registration period: September 10th, 2018 - October 15th, 2018. Registration will be extended until FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2018.

You have to register in teams of up to three students in order to participate. Only one member needs to register for the team.

You will also need to pay the registration fee of CAD $30/team (+13% HST) via this payment website.

Once our staff receives your completed registration form and checks the payment, you will receive a confirmation e-mail for your registration along with the necessary instructions for setting up your RPM account within 72 hours. If you have not received communication from our staff after 72 hours please email rpmc@rotman.utoronto.ca with the subject line "Registration Confirmation Inquiry" and include your team representative's full name, phone number and full names of all other team members.

RPM

RPMC will utilize the Rotman Portfolio Manager (RPM) Software developed in the Rotman Finance Lab. Each participant is encouraged to visit the RPM Website in order to download and install the platform. More detailed instructions will be sent out once the registration is completed.

RPMC2019 Information package

In order to access more detailed information about RPMC, please refer to the information document here.

Competition Rules

Tradable Securities – Participants will only be allowed to trade from a list of securities for the RPMC in order to make sure that the competition performance is evaluated fairly. A list of tradable securities can be found here.

Portfolio Constraints – Each portfolio can only invest up to 20% of its total value into a single security.

Capital Allocation – Each team should invest most of the capital into securities. Cash position should be kept lower than 10% of the total portfolio value at all times starting from November 2nd, 2018.

Trading Frequency – Teams must maintain regular trading activity with a minimum of one trade every two weeks starting from November 2nd, 2018. Failure to make at least one trade every two weeks will result in a penalty.

Scoring

The competition will be scored on a performance basis measured by the Sharpe Ratio. Further details on the Scoring Methodology can be found here. Once the 'Portfolio Management Period' is over on March 8th, selected top performing teams will be required to deliver a presentation on their investment results and strategies to a panel of portfolio managers and investment professionals on March 15th, 2019. Teams will be evaluated based on both presentation and portfolio performance on a weighted average basis. There will be an optional workshop hosted by the Rotman Finance Lab to provide guidance on the portfolio performance analyses and presentations for the selected teams on March 11th, 2019.